


Weather the Storm

by Myth979, Wizardheart83 (Plant_Murderer)



Series: When the Sky is Starless [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bigotry & Prejudice, Department of Mysteries, Friendship is Magic, Multi, War is hell, because death eaters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2018-11-23 04:47:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11395647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myth979/pseuds/Myth979, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plant_Murderer/pseuds/Wizardheart83
Summary: Doing something means risking everything. Razi learns the secrets of the Department of Mysteries and joins the Order of the Phoenix while Alyssa takes a different approach.





	1. Chapter 1

Razi Levine stood tall and braced herself for the task that she was about to perform. It had to be done, and there was no one else who could. It should have been done weeks ago, but her heart had been no less heavy after a week, and it hadn’t felt right.  With a shaking hand she pulled the heavy dark cloth from the mirror in what had been her mother’s bedroom. Watching the dust motes swirl in the light of the rising sun she felt hollow and fragile, as if she too could be pushed apart with a breath. 

She walked to the bedroom where her mother had died and pulled the dark cloth from the mirror there as well. She walked room to room and took down the last outward markers of her mourning. Each time she saw her mother’s nose, the shape of her eyes- if not quite the color - and the similarities struck her. It seemed strange that she should still be her mother’s daughter. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world, but the world still felt wrong without Shara Levine. How could it be right without her breathing its air and making it better, without her seeing and loving Razi, and loving the people that Razi had set before her like offerings?

There were mysteries that might never be solved.  A glance at the clock in living room told her that she needed to get ready if she was going to be on time.  Razi pulled a black summer robe over her knee length dark grey dress and walked out to the shed, passing the copy of the Prophet that had arrived earlier that morning with purposeful inattention. She apparated to a designated alley near the visitor’s entrance to the ministry, strained her robes, and walked quickly to the red phone booth.  Dialing the number and following prompts, she thought back to the events that had brought her to ministry. 

It’d begun after the week of mourning that a dusty old book in Shara’s room had said was proper. Razi had finished the final pages of the Ministry guidebook. On the inside of the back cover, a final complex spell had revealed a message. 

“Congratulation, young witch. You have met the requirements for the only position not covered in detail in the pages of this book. Please join us on the fourth Wednesday of the first month following your graduation at 7:28 a.m. Simply present the guidebook when asked your purpose for being at the ministry. Tell no one. - Selan B. Spuake”

Zonko’s had closed, and Razi had known that she wouldn’t be able to take the job there, not after everything that had happened. Razi had set her mind on going for a ministry job, and the opportunity presented by the book was better than most, even if it was unknown.

So it was that Razi was riding down to the atrium of the ministry.  When she arrived, she saw an immense pair of statues; a witch and a wizard, whose feet were in pools of water that were too blue and sparkling not to have been enchanted. Their wands were raised and crossed forming an arch. Razi passed through the arch without looking longer than necessary and made her way to the security desk to have her want weighed.  There was a nervous energy to the place. The Dark Lord had been growing bolder, and the death count was rising faster than it ever had before. In cells in the deepest level below their feet several people claiming to have been imperiused  when they tortured and killed. They waited for trial in cells across from the handful of true believers that the aurors had gotten hold of. Razi shuddered to think how many of the people racing around would join either group in time.

The witch working the security table took one look at the book then directed her to the ninth level, the Department of Mysteries.

It took time for Razi to find an empty lift, but she did, wary of more people than necessary seeing where she was going. The actual ride to the floor was fast by comparison, and soon Razi found herself stepping into the black tiled hall that led to the department entrance. A pair of torches set too far apart lit the hall but left spaces where the shadows seemed deeper than they ought to have. The tile was polished and reflected oddly in ways that made Razi want to play with illusions. This was a canvas beyond anything she’d thought about before. She resisted the urge and walked towards the door at the other end.

Razi put her hand on the knob and waited, watching the seconds on her watch until, at 7:28 exactly, she opened the door and stepped inside. 

\----

The room seemed very full, with blue flamed candles casting an eerie light on hooded figures robed in grey. Behind them, in the walls of the round room were countless doors. One of the figures stepped forward and Razi gripped her wand but held it at her side. The figure raised an arm with a slim pale wrist and drew the name Selan B. Spuake on the air, the letters as smooth as if she’d written them in floating ink. Another figure waved his or her own wand at the name and the letters shifted until at last they stopped, and Razi saw the one mystery that the book had held onto.

The word left floating in the air was “Unspeakables”.

A man pulled back the hood of his cloak. Rookwood, Razi recognized though he’d graduated at the end Razi’s third year in Hogwarts. He’d been something of an unallied force, not in the Malfoy/Black court, but not a grasping outsider either. He handed her an ancient seeming scroll, and Razi felt its magic reach out and touch her, sinking into her skin as she unrolled it and read,

“What we see cannot be known,

What we study, all men feel,

Powers some will seek to own,

Secrets that must be concealed,

 

Merits marked, your skills arrayed,

Tricks and subtleties explored,

Talents tested, watched, and weighed,

Long before you reached our doors.

 

Join with us and guard these truths,

In our circle silent seek,

Else be gone and know no more,

Of this place, you’ll never speak.

 

Be now bound to our first oath,

Joined in fate, the oath and mind,

Sound or severed both in kind.     

What we see cannot be known.”

When she looked up from the scroll, she saw pairs with their hoods pulled back standing in front of the doors set into the walls. An older woman stepped forward and waved them off, leaving Razi standing with her as the others entered the rooms and presumably continued their work. The remaining woman’s brown skin was much lighter than Razi’s, as was the dark hair that fell in waves framing her rounded face.

“You have been touched by death,” the woman observed tilting her head, with frown. “Far too common these days. I am Anandi Batra. If you’ll be joining us, I’ll be your supervisor and teach you the guidelines for each of the rooms. If not, I can leave you in the Leaky Cauldron with the memory of a spectacular interview for a minor position elsewhere. ‘Accidents and catastrophes’ are always happy to take our recruits, and they’re understaffed.  What’ll it be?”   

Razi took a deep breath and weighed her options. Once again, she’d been stealthily recruited for a secret organization and - if she accepted- she’d never be able to share the nature of her work with anyone. How many secrets could she hold without losing herself? How many ways could her loyalty be split?  Still, this job could quite useful. Who could ever tell an unspeakable that she was out of place? Would her work be limited to these rooms? What secrets might she learn if she signed on?  It was those latter questions as much as anything that led Razi to nod her head and then give her answer aloud.

“I will join you.”

Batra held her hand out for the scroll and when she took it, Razi felt another spark of magic.

“I bind you to your word, Unspeakable Levine. If you change your mind, do it soon. We will guard our truths and we will pursue fiercely any who share them outside of our circle,” Batra intoned.

“I understand, Unspeakable Batra,” Razi said solemnly.

“Then, as my own supervisor once told me,” Batra said with a grin, “‘you shall see wonders’. We begin with the rules, and then a tour. If you ask me why you must study the rules first, I will simply wave to you in the atrium when you’re heading for level three tomorrow.”

Batra showed Razi to a room off to the side and helped her with some basic things, getting her a name tag, badge, and a tome that, when supplied with a drop of Razi’s blood, became an enormous book of rules and research, readable only by Razi.

Razi spent much of the day studying. Batra demanded that she memorize the rules for each room before being allowed to enter it, and the more that she knew of the kinds of research carried out in each area, the sooner she could participate. She would be assigned field studies and duties outside of the ministry building only once she’d seen each of their subjects and understood them as they existed in the rooms. Razi worked through lunch, too interested in her reading to want to leave, but Batra sent her home early, with strict instructions to leave further study for the next day.

 

\-----

The unread newspaper was still on the table where Razi had left it when she returned, but she didn’t so much as glance at it, just traded her robe for a long apron and went out to see to the garden.

When she’d done as much watering and weeding as she could without collapsing from hunger, she washed up. She made a quick stir-fry and ate it with a generous portion of rice, leaving the dishes in the sink to soak. She had another appointment.

Razi apparated to the alley behind the Leaky Cauldron and used a spell to make herself invisible. She waited for about ten minutes before someone came from Diagon Alley, then caught the door and slipped inside, taking a seat next to Remus Lupin at a table against a wall. Razi watched the doors, waiting for a large enough crowd, and when a family of four came in, drawing the barkeep’s attention, she cast illusions of James, Lily, and Sirius that waved to him before coming over and taking places at Remus’s table. Remus cast a silencing ward, not terribly uncommon in public with things being what they were, and he acted as though he were greeting and conversing with friends. His back was to the room, allowing him to speak without worry of someone reading his lips. There were fewer people going out these days, and most in the pub were staying in rooms upstairs.

“Any word from them?” Razi asked. Dumbledore hadn’t called a meeting since their last, two weeks prior, when he’d sent several members of their order off with assignments. She wasn’t worried, exactly, but she hadn’t been overly worried about Elaine or her mother either, and they hadn’t been actively thwarting Voldemort’s followers.  

“They’ve checked in when they can,” he replied, turning to the illusion of James and laughing as he gestured with his hand. “All seems well, but you know how quickly that can turn. Have you seen the paper today?”

“I’ve been busy,” Razi replied. She suddenly and fiercely wished for the days before Alyssa’s arrangement with Avery, back when she and Remus had been something like equivalents, the outsiders with ties to somewhat dramatic purebloods. Things had been simpler then.

“I know-” Remus began. The image of Lily narrowed he eyes at him and he stopped short, but braved on, ”I understand what you tried to do for her, or I think I do. To give her a way back and to hold that door open for so long, knowing what you’ve seen in Slytherin, and what her friends did- that was admirable.”

“You don’t have to do this,” Razi replied. “I don’t need consolation or praise. I was a friend to her, and then we made our choices. She made hers, but I’ve made mine too. Things will be different moving forward. I’d thank you for minding your own affairs, but if you expected thanks you’d have offered me something I could use.”

Remus raised a hand in surrender, and the image of Lily smiled, before turning to the one of James and whispering something in his ear. The Sirius double rolled his eyes and looked conspiratorially to Remus, who smiled at it tilting his head to catch the image’s eye.

“What about this?” Remus asked. “You know what I am. And you know that I’ve seen something of who you are. We have friends in common. We are very nearly friends. Finish up and let me help you home.”

“You,” Razi shot back, “are an intrusive worrier and far too kind for anyone’s good. I’ll walk out behind you all.”

Razi watched as Remus stood and moved the images so that Lily, James and Sirius seemed to walk with him out into the Alley.  If Remus held the door open a beat too long, no one seemed to notice.

She used a spell to mimic the crack of apparition as she dropped all spells and illusions, leaving herself standing next to Remus, visible, but tired. He offered his arm and she took it, allowing him to apparate them to the shed behind her house. He’d come with Lily once during that first week after she’d come home. Razi barely remembered it.

“I’ll be fine from here,” she told him at the door.

“There are pictures with the article, but just three,” Remus told her. “They made the cover, but it’s not unbearable. Insipid, but not unbearable.”

“Thank you for helping me home,” Razi replied. Remus nodded and left with a loud pop.

Razi stepped out of the shed and walked through the garden to the house. Once there, she unlocked the door and stepped inside. She walked through the house once, checked the wards, and took another look around before sitting down in the kitchen and unrolling the Prophet.  In the bottom corner of the first page, taking up a quarter of the space there, the headline blared, “POWERHOUSE PAIR TO WED IN WINTER.”

Below the bolded text Razi saw a picture of Alyssa and Avery, smiling at the camera and occasionally casting loving and self-satisfied looks at each other. His arm was around her and it seemed to tighten the longer she watched.

Turning to the text of the article, she began to read.

“It is with great joy that I report the anticipated joining of two of wizarding Britain’s most venerable houses, those of Avery and Blythe. Sources tell us that these two Hogwarts sweethearts have been together since their fifth year, when a minor rivalry resolved itself into a relationship that spans years and crosses house lines.  The story of the romance that endured through joy and tragedy, what this could mean for the Wizengamot, and even some hints about what the Blythe Heiress wear on her big day, all on page 3.”

Razi didn’t turn the page. She looked back at the picture and felt even more tired than she had before. What she’d told Remus was right. Alyssa had made her choices. If all went to plan, maybe Razi would be glad of that someday.

In the room that was once her mothers, in the trunk where she kept her old school things, in pocket with dozens of old letters, was a note that Razi had received the evening after she’d arrived home.

“I’ll find you this time. Trust me.”

There was no signature. There’s been no need.

Razi looked at the picture, thought of the note, and dragged herself to bed.  It had been a very long day.  


	2. Chapter 2

Alyssa had never thought much about her wedding, or even having a wedding, really.

“Never?” Douglas gasped when Alyssa mentioned it. Alyssa should start calling her Arielle in her head to keep in practice. “But every little girl-”

“She had other things to do, Douglas,” Mierin snapped. “Not all of us sit around writing our names in hearts.”

Alyssa had not, in point of fact, been aware that thinking about her apparently inevitable wedding was something she should have been doing. Razi never had that she’d mentioned, and neither had Delaney or Amanda even when Delaney was in the throes of infatuation with Stark.

She supposed Delaney was still in the throes of infatuation with Stark. Their engagment announcement had been overshadowed by hers and Avery’s, but she had still seen it tucked away in the paper. 

Still. Surely Ms. Levine would have said something if Alyssa had been supposed to be planning a wedding as a child. Alyssa caught herself wondering when she could ask about it and stopped herself before she started to cry.

Then again, Alyssa’s mother seemed to have all sorts of plans. In the case of weddings, therefore, Alyssa was inclined to trust her judgment: Irene Blythe was, after all, the only one in the room besides Mrs. Avery (“Call me Mum, dear, or we’ll all be confused once you’re married”) who had actually planned a wedding before.

“Of course Levine will be the maid of honor,” Irene said, bringing Alyssa back to the here and now.

Irene had to pick  _ now _ to try to do what Alyssa wanted? Mierin shot Alyssa a cautious look.

“Mierin will be my maid of honor,” Alyssa said. She would bring Razi into this pit of festering pustules when hell froze over.

Irene blinked at her. “I’m nearly certain I’ve heard youcall Levine your best friend before.”

After an awkward pause where everyone in the room absorbed the fact that Irene Blythe was only  _ nearly _ certain of Alyssa’s best friend, Alyssa stood, smiled at everyone even if it made her teeth hurt, and said, “Could I speak to you alone, Mother?”

Irene followed her into the hall.

“Razi can’t come.”

“I’m sure she’s learned enough over the years to comport herself properly,” Irene said.

Alyssa stared at her mother. “Do you not understand how unsafe she would be here? With these people?”  _ With you _ , Alyssa didn’t add, but she remembered how Razi had only ever come to her house once even though it would have meant being able to do magic during the summer.

Irene sniffed. “ _ These people _ . Really, Alyssa. It will do her good - maybe she’ll even manage to find some cadet branch of Blacks to marry into. She is skilled, Horace says, and the Prewetts have never been that picky.”

“ _ Her mother was just murdered _ ,” Alyssa snarled before she even absorbed the rest of it. Was that a jab at Jonathan? Did her mother speak to Professor Slughorn regularly? 

“A month ago,” Irene pointed out. “This is your day, Alyssa. She’ll be here if you want her to be - heaven knows when anything else will go your way. Weddings are happy occasions. It will do her good - I’ll invite her myself.”

A month was not enough for Alyssa to stop thinking of Ms. Levine as if she were still alive and then remembering otherwise, let alone Razi, never mind how happy Alyssa’s sham of a wedding was supposed to be.

“Just because you and I wouldn’t care if the other died doesn’t mean other people feel the same way,” Alyssa told her mother, letting her tone turn ice cold. “Don’t talk to Razi. Don’t mention her. Don’t  _ think _ about her.”

Her mother didn’t say anything. Alyssa realized, after a moment, that she had been waiting for her mother to refute the claim that she wouldn’t care if Alyssa died. She realized that it hurt less than she had expected that Irene had not.

“Let’s go back to planning,” Alyssa suggested, and opened the door for her mother.

 

* * *

 

“Our mother asked if I’d been corrupting you,” Jonathan said at lunch a week later. He had agreed to attend the wedding grudgingly, though Alyssa had told him in her best nonchalant tones that she understood if he didn’t want to come. His eyes had narrowed, and he had searched her face for a long, tense minute before he said that he was coming.

“Someone needs to be there if you change your mind,” he’d said.

So Alyssa had put her foot down, and Jonathan was on the bridal side of the wedding party, having turned Avery’s offer of best man down flat.

Now he continued, “She seemed to think it was the only explanation for her good child to accuse her of not giving a damn.”

“She didn’t refute it,” Alyssa replied, and took a long sip of tea. “I thought you were the good child. You’re the one who made Head Boy - I wasn’t even a prefect.”

“Well, you weren’t supposed to. Look how you turned out, marrying an Avery and everything.”

“All I had to do was bat my eyelashes the once,” Alyssa said, a little more bitterly than she meant to.

Jonathan watched her as he shredded a scone. “You still don’t have to do what they want,” he said. “Our father won’t be proud either way, you know.”

“Our father has barely noticed the wedding preparations,” Alyssa said. “Our mother has decided this is what she cares about. Did you know that she apparently talks to Professor Slughorn? Not a word of my potionswork, though. Just one passing mention of Razi being skilled enough to maybe bag a Prewett if she exerted herself and the Prewetts were feeling particularly expansive.”

“That’s nothing new,” Jonathan pointed out gently. “Well, I guess the Razi thing is new, but - did you think she was listening, when you’d tell her about your recipe adaptations or your new way of preparing toadstools?”

Alyssa looked down at the table. The toadstools had been during winter break of her first year. Maybe because Jonathan had always cared, she had been able to hold out hope that her mother would too, and now it looked to Jonathan as if she cared more about making their mother happy than she did taking the oppurtunity for her own happiness that Jonathan had given her by loving her when their parents wouldn’t.

But she couldn’t stand by and do nothing when people were dying, and she wanted to hurt people for what they had done to Razi and Shara, and she didn’t know any way other than this to do something about it. Much to Mierin’s despair, Alyssa had failed to rise above barely competent when it came to duelling.

“Josh and Mulciber are going out with some old friends tomorrow night,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant. “Somewhere near Cornwall. I expect they’ll be a bit rowdy.”

She looked up at met Jonathan’s eyes again. “You know how boys are, when they get in large groups.”

He stared at her. She raised her eyebrows meaningfully. “I’m sure you know who can deal with it best.”

“Alyssa,” he said slowly.

She reached into her purse and dropped the appropriate amount of muggle money on the table for the meal - Razi and Shara had thought it was fun, to teach her how to deal with the funny pieces of paper and odd little coins. She stood, and kissed his cheek. “Be careful,” she whispered in his ear, and walked off down the street.


	3. Chapter 3

“Good work, Mr. Blythe,” Dumbledore said. “We’ll set a patrol in Cornwall tomorrow. Volunteers?”

Razi looked around the room, the dining room of a detached home in Harrow that Dumbledore had bought and warded, and watched as several hands rose. One of them was Lily’s, though she’d only just returned from the mission with James and Sirius. The latter two seemed as though they were about to raise their own hands, so Razi beat them to it.

“I’ll go, if Evans will take a night off,” Razi stipulated.

“Ever the Slytherin, Ms. Levine,” Dumbledore observed. “Ms. Evans, I’ve other tasks in mind for you if you’ll accept her terms. Messrs. Prewett, Ms. Vance, Ms. Levine, I trust you’ll deal with this discretely. Concentrate your efforts around Truro and Tintagel, the Muggle and magical centers of the county.  Keep in touch.”

Dumbledore looked to Lily, who nodded her acceptance, and then to the volunteers, who murmured their agreement.

“Alastor, will you be able to arrange some assistance if they should require it?” Dumbledore asked, turning to his friend.

“We barely have enough people to keep the minister’s arse covered, Albus. And who do you think has been having to put out fires in London and Hogsmeade?” Moody grumbled. “If there’s need, I’ll see if we can spare anyone, but I’d imagine some of the force will need to sleep someday.”

“Sleep is for dreamers, and it’ll be a while yet before we can afford those,” Alice Longbottom interjected with a grin. “I’ll put a kettle on after my shift. Good strong cuppa and I’ll be up and ready again, you’ll see. ”

“I’ll be on my rounds, but Mum can help knock heads as well,” Frank said, “and Algie’s still fine with doing some healing if it’s required. He’ll grumble but he’ll be here.”

Dumbledore nodded with a brief half-smile and said, “all of your efforts are appreciated. I will consider our resources and let each of you know the plan by tomorrow morning. Any other news?”

Peter Pettigrew raised his hand, stating, “Heard the vampires are convening in the east. Couple came into the shop to get charmed trunks last night; less conspicuous than carrying a coffin out in the open. Adsworth had me open the shop special for them, as it was such a big order.”

“This could be grave indeed. Mr. Pettigrew, perhaps you could take a train ride later this evening? See if you can overhear anything else. Mr. Lupin, would you accompany him?” Dumbledore asked.

Both men nodded and the meeting continued for a few minutes more. When they were dismissed, Razi stood and picked up her bag. She turned to walk out, but Jonathan called out to her.

“Wait, Razi,” he said. “It’s been weeks.”

“It has,” Razi agreed. “Busy ones, at that.”

“Gideon and Fabian are making dinner here tonight, for anyone interested,” Jonathan said. “We could talk.”

Razi glanced around at the order members who didn’t look to be heading home. Lily and James seemed to be staying, as did Remus, Sirius, Peter, and several others. Jonathan was dating Gideon, so there was a family part to it, but without much intimacy as the others were there. On another night, she might have stayed, but the gardens needed her attention, more so now that she knew that she’d be busy the next evening.

“Counter offer. Come have dinner with me,” Razi said. “Maybe they’ll have that sorted by the time you get back.”

Razi nodded to where the Prewetts were being dressed down by Molly Weasley, their elder sister. She and Arthur had taken the meeting in shifts, taking turns watching their five boys in a bedroom upstairs. It’d been Arthur’s shift last, but clearly Molly had been updated. (“I’ll have gray hair inside of a month, just wait,” Molly fussed. “If my youngest are half the trouble that you two are, I don’t know what’ll do.” “Be four times as proud I suspect,” Gideon teased in response, setting Molly off on another tirade.)

Jonathan gave a wry smile.

“Your optimism is astounding,” he said, “but I suppose a break couldn’t hurt. I’ll meet you there.”

\------

 Razi was out in the garden when Jonathan arrived, watering the plants but also getting fresh herbs. She put the watering can down when he approached.

“Come on in, I was just getting some things,” Razi said.  She led the way inside and directed him to the bathroom to wash up. she was cutting some carrots with a sharp knife when he joined her in the kitchen and sat down at the table. Razi stopped what she was doing and turned to look at him. He looked back, confused. After a moment Razi realized…

“Sorry, I guess it made more sense when there were two of us,” Razi said. “Did Alyssa never mention? House rule is that if one person in the kitchen is working, so is everyone else. Even if it’s just to set the table.”

Jonathan stood and walked to an open faced cabinet, picking up two plates as he answered, “I might have missed a detail while wondering at her tone. She talked about her time here like something from a dream; surreal and wonderful,” he commented.

“Mum had that effect on people,” Razi said, tipping the carrots and some kale into a hot pan with some basil and thyme, and adding salt and vegetable oil. “Especially those she loved. Especially here, where she could make life beautiful.”

Razi pulled a container of rice from the refrigerator and heated it with a spell, before stirring the vegetables.

“Does it hurt to talk about her?” Jonathan asked gently. “You’ve definitely gotten some strength back, since I saw you that first week, but I won’t test it for curiosity.”

“I live in this house, and sleep in her bed,” Razi replied. “You’re going to stand next to your sister while she marries Avery. Pain is relative, but so is solace.”

Jonathan nodded then said, “I have my thoughts about her marriage, but I suspect that if I asked you-”

Razi shook her head.

“I wish her happiness,” Razi said honestly. “If I wish other things as well, I’m in good company.”

Jonathan smiled sadly, and stood to help as Razi put a big scoop of rice on a plate and topped it with the vegetables before repeating the process for her own plate.  They ate and talked companionably and when they finished, Jonathan offered to pass something along to his sister when he had a chance.

Razi moved to say no out of hand, but then asked him to wait just a moment.

Thankful for her mother’s love of beautiful things, Razi took a small glass frame with flowers and vines etched into its borders that had been sitting on her mother’s dresser, waiting to be used. She hurried to the greenhouse and took some blue flax flowers, arranging them to form a filled-in circle in the frame, and used a spell to ensure that they’d never fade. She cast another to etch a sun rune, faint but noticeable on the face of the glass, so that the circle of the rune framed the flowers. 

When she brought it back and handed it to Jonathan he looked at it for a long time.

“Flax and a sun rune,” He said at last, “domesticity and knowledge, and new beginnings?”

“Protection, and considered action as well,” Razi added. “Growth and will….  Not grand enough for a wedding present I think, but I want her to have it.”

Jonathan nodded. As he turned to leave Razi added, “You’re welcome here, I want you to know that, and she would have as well. If I’m here you’re welcome. Could even bring a Prewett or two.”

Jonathan thanked her, and went to the garden shed to apparate back to headquarters.

If Razi cried, just a moment, in the privacy of her kitchen while she did the dishes, if she took a few minutes to wish other things and feel how different it was to have those wishes alone and unshared, she took no lasting harm from either action. Fawkes appeared in her room shortly after eleven that evening with marching orders for the next day, and a portkey obtained off books by Moody. She’d been assigned to patrol in Tintagel. Razi fed the bird some blueberries from the garden, smiling as it sang briefly in thanks. The song seemed to linger in the air lending a sense of hope and peace. For the first time since she’d come home, Razi slept soundly.

\----

 When Razi arrived in the Department of Mysteries, Batra set Razi another day of study. The hours sped by in haze of rules and previous findings for the Death chamber, the one containing the veil where the dead called out in whispers. This room, Batra said, presented a particular danger in times of conflict, because those touched by death were more vulnerable to its effects.

At the end of the day Razi learned where each of the rooms were, and was quizzed on some of the research. By summer’s end she’d be allowed to enter the rooms and begin studying on her own, if she kept up her current pace. Field missions were also a possibility, but that would depend on need and skill. It was not lost on Razi exactly how similar her classified work life was to the secret, vigilante, paramilitary group membership that claimed a decent number of her off hours

  Razi felt herself getting tense as she appeared in the garden shed behind her house and paused to touch the paint, still new and smooth from where her mother had decorated it for her, back when her mother had lived and believed that they’d get to share their home again while Razi worked to establish herself in the wizarding world. The shock of love and pain helped clear her head, and she hurried through the garden and into the house, making quick checks to the wards before changing into a black dress with black tights. She twisted her braids into a bun and secured them with a hair tie, and covered the ensemble with a light grey cloak. The hood was detachable and charmed to hide her face. This was her first patrol, but she’d been prepared for weeks, knowing how little warning she might have before being called to action.

While she waited for the portkey - a heavy parchment bookmark - to activate, Razi looked up Tintagel in an encyclopedia. She’d never been before, but she’d seen the pictures a few times over the years. There was a town and, of course, the historical site.  The ruins of Tintagel castle were compelling; parts of walls and foundations that had been there since the dark ages. Still, how could these ruins be the magical center of anything? They seemed like a muggle tourist attraction, even of the castle had actually been the site of one of Merlin’s most terrible acts of magic and the birthplace of King Arthur.

Glancing up at the clock on the dresser, she saw that it was nearly time, and put down the encyclopedia just before the portkey fulfilled its purpose, pulling her across the country in a dizzying, tightening mess of sensation.

When Razi arrived, it took her a moment to get her bearings, and stow the portkey in a pocket on her dress. She’d been sent to the hillside nearest the entrance to the ruined castle, but as she looked around nothing seemed at all like the pictures. There was a road, but in the place of the broken remnants she’d seen in the muggle encyclopedia, was a fortress that looked whole and untouched by time.

“I know,” a voice from behind Razi said, and Razi turned to see Emmeline Vance. She was wearing a dark red cloak with her hood pulled back, revealing her face. “It’s really something - or it was, anyway.”

“Was?” Razi asked quietly, bewildered.  

“Muggles have it the right way for once,” Vance told her. “What you see is an illusion, or most of it is. It fades once you get far enough away. It’s special to the wizarding world, so we honor it by seeing it as it was, but it’s just for show. This is a place for all kinds of tourists.”

Razi nodded to show that she’d heard and Vance put up her own hood, drawing her wand.

“I’ve already put up ‘closed’ signs at the end of the road, and the ticket sellers had gone home before I arrived,” Vance said, more softly. “You have your orders?”

Razi nodded again.

“Good,” Vance said, pulling a miniature broom from her pocket, unshrinking it, and passing it to Razi.

Razi disillusioned herself and the broom and then took flight, climbing until she’d passed the range for the illusion and could see the castle as a stark and stubborn ruin. Even the land connecting the headland to rest of Cornwall had fallen away in time, but those bricks still stood, placed by people whose bones could still be there in the ground beside them.  She stared silently down at them for a long time.

____

The sun had just begun to set when the first cracks of apparition drew Razi’s eyes to the large hall where the castles rulers would have presided. Still hidden by her spells and the sites own illusion of a roof, Razi flew over to it and looked down. She counted six robed and masked figures. With a spell to sharpen her hearing, she listened as Avery, whose voice she recognized easily, began a speech.

“For too long muggles have been allowed to claim this place, as if they’ve any right,” he proclaimed. “Not so after tonight. Drink up. They’ll never come gawking again after tonight, we’ll see to that.” 

A cheer went up, and Razi saw that some had brought barrels and cups.

“And the Missus won’t mind?” another robed figure teased.

“If she does, she’s marryin’ the wrong bloke, innit,” another voice called even as a figure that could only be Mulciber nearly growled in response.

Ending the spell, Razi flew higher and searched for a happy memory. It was time to summon the Prewetts, and find Vance, and a patronus would be the fastest way. She reached for a happy memory from school but fell short, school was Elaine, and the lies that hadn’t saved her. Home was her mother, dead. Her present location was in the air above people who would kill Razi on sight if they could, or do worse for amusement. The memory of her mother’s blank eyes… She couldn’t cast a patronus, not that night. Faltering, she looked around and saw that Vance had arrived in their meeting place.

Razi flew down and cast a silencing ward before telling Vance what she’d seen and heard.

She watched as Vance sent her patronus to the Prewetts before the older woman spoke again. Vance’s mouth was set in a determined smile though her hood hid it almost completely.

“Alright then, now let’s even the odds. I’ll draw them out. Keep them in the dark as long as you can, but you’re only good to us conscious.”

Razi nodded and flew again, as before, she went high enough that the illusion wouldn’t reach, but this time she kept her eyes on the hall and its current inhabitants. With a crack, Vance apparated into the foundations of what had been a free-standing house in the old settlement.

From the sky, the settlement was a wide space with little left standing that was tall enough to hide behind. From the ground though, with the illusions that showed new walls, Vance was quite well hidden, and Razi did not fear for her as the death eaters left the main hall and split up to search for what had made the noise. They walked the long-overgrown paths as though the buildings around them still stood, and they walked alone, each separate and vulnerable.

Razi hexed one from the air, casting a silencing charm on him before dropping him with the full-body bind, noting his height and general shape.  A moment later she saw Vance do the same, and Razi made quick semblances of the robed figures, making sure that others from the group saw them before letting them dissipate so that she didn’t have to spend the energy to maintain them.

Vance apparated again and Razi had to fight down a shout as the other woman appeared in the path between two of the structures in the northern ruins, steps behind a death eater who turned, startled.

Wordlessly, Razi cast an impediment jinx sending him through a wall that wasn’t there and he hit his head on the cornerstone, but stood again even as Razi turned in the air to stun another approaching figure. She apparated to the ground beside the largest remaining stone structure, across the headland into a strange overlay of illusions, a home with a false fire in its long cold hearth was overlaid by a dark, small chapel. A spell flashed inches from her head and Razi climbed up and through a gap that she’d seen in the stones from above, scraping her knee against the old stone as she went.

There were more loud pops and Razi gripped her wand tight, running through the images of walls, aiming for the southern part of the headland, where all the foundations had crumbled to nothing. Along the way she tossed out a stunner throwing a robed figure through a wall even as a familiar shout announced the Prewett brothers’ arrival.

Razi heard Avery shout, “Enough of this! Let’s go!”

The skirmish seemed to end as the four standing death eaters apparated away. Razi cast a sonorous on herself, amplifying her voice to say, “The campground!”

“Meet you there Levine,” Fabian yelled back. “By the entrance! Emmeline, mind taking out the trash?”

“Just this once, Fay,” Emmeline called as Razi left, appearing in a disorienting, smoky hell.

The death eaters had set fire to the surrounding fields and some of the caravans. Gideon immediately began putting them out, even as Razi created images of three robed figures, making sure that Avery, Mulciber and whoever else had left the castle would see them seeming to re-set fires, hiding Gideon’s progress, and distracting the death eaters as Fabien shot spells at them. Before much time had passed, she sent her illusions running towards the hotel and the town proper.  Avery’s sickening laugh sounded loud even as muggles screamed and the fires spread to nearby homes.

Releasing her hold on the illusions, Razi cast a shield around a nearby caravan as it exploded, startling Gideon who’d been standing too near it and drawing confused exclamations from the muggles who’d seen the fire debris contained as if by an invisible wall.

The mark appeared in the sky above the campground- Skull and snake glowing lurid in the rising smoke and growing darkness. The world beneath it burned on.

Dizzy with exhaustion Razi fell to her knees, only to force herself to stand again and remove her cloak. Hiding her wand in her sleeve, she could have passed for a muggle girl with a funny hood.

The battle had ended, but the cleanup had only just started. 

A whimper nearby drew her attention back to the caravan whose explosion she’d contained. a person, badly burned, lay in the smoldering remains. Face down and crying out in agony, the muggle seemed to be trying to move, trying to inch towards something, a door? Razi stepped back in horror (had she done this? had she trapped this poor soul inside with the inferno?), but then she moved closer.

She needn’t be a healer to know that the muggle could not survive this. Help would not come in time and even if it did, not even magic could have done enough.

Feeling sick in the deepest part of her, Razi cast a numbing charm, and then knelt down beside them.

“Sleep,” she said distantly and inanely, looking around and seeing evidence of a family, remnants of other bodies. Beyond them, people ran and wailed in grief and fear. “They are beyond harm. This night will end. No one will hurt you further. I think there may be stars tonight.”

She cast another numbing charm, and whispered the spell for bewitched sleep. It would not stop death, but she hoped it would offer peace. A hand appeared beside her, and Razi looked up to see Gideon.

“Well done,” he said, pulling her arm to help her stand. “It could be hours before they know we got three of theirs. The ministry is sending people for the survivors.”

“The fires,” Razi said, pulling away.

“Can’t you hear? The muggles are on their way with water. It’s time to go,” Gideon said, gently but firmly.

Razi looked at the muggle beside her feet. Then up, to where the mark had been. Someone had taken it down.

“How many?” she asked.

“We never know,” Gideon replied. “Where’s your portkey?”

Razi pulled it out and took a deep breath. Gideon put his hands over hers and gripped tightly, making sure to touch the portkey directly as well, and Razi flinched but allowed it.

“Say it with me, now,” he urged. “Quick, they’ll be waiting for us. The password to take us to headquarters.”

“From the ashes rise,” they both said.

When they arrived at headquarters, falling into a spare room, Razi landed on her scraped knee and curled up on the floor. She was pained, bleeding from more cuts than she’d noticed getting, and she’d survived her first skirmish as an order member. 

“I’m going home,” she announced to whomever was present and listening, before apparating directly into the gardens, having missed her mark by feet.

Death had touched her soul once more, leaving fresh marks with its grasping fingers, carving new wounds. Razi wept and bled on the soft earth for a while and did not see the stars. Exhausted and coming down from the fear and abject horror of the night, she did not look up at the clear sky, or worry that she had not checked the wards. She lay there for hours, until she felt strong enough to move, and then she stood to go inside.

There was a pop of apparition nearby and Razi raised her wand, fear striking her tired heart like a fist, but Lily came out of the shed. Jonathan arrived a moment later, with Gideon and Fabien behind him.

The four of them escorted Razi into her home, and checked each of the rooms. Lily spelled her clean and healed her wounds, while Jonathan and the twins heated tomato soup they’d brought from headquarters, and made strong black tea, fortified with firewhiskey.  

They ate, and told the story of the nights events as if they were old, and legend, and harmless. Lily and Jonathan gasped at all the right parts. 

When they left, Razi saw the stars as they disappeared into the dawn. There would be more battles, she knew, but there’d be help as well, during and after. Ignored on the table, the prophet told of the fires at Trevena (as many wizards still called the village beside the headland). Razi stayed outside a while, feeling the new sun on her dark skin. She picked up a watering can nearby, and saw to the plants until it was time to dress for work.

                                                                          


	4. Chapter 4

Alyssa frowned at the door. It remained stubbornly locked despite multiple unlocking spells, and she didn’t dare destroy it. 

Avery didn’t hide things from her these days. What was behind the door that she shouldn’t see? The one window to the outside was blacked out, or at least the window she  _ assumed  _ led to the room. 

“And what are you up to?” Mulciber asked.

Alyssa almost smiled. These days, it was a relief to be around Mulciber: she didn’t have to pretend she liked him.

“None of your business,” she said, turning around so she could face him and leaning back against the stubborn door. She crossed her arms for good measure.

“You’re snooping.”

She smiled sweetly at him, and he glared. “Can one snoop in one’s own house?” she asked.

“It isn’t your house,” he retorted, not for the first time.

“Enjoy saying that for two more weeks,” she told him, and pushed off the door. “I’ll certainly enjoy that you can’t correct me after.”

He glared harder as she walked easily past him. “Where are you going?”

“I have a wedding shower to get to,” she replied without looking back, and kept walking.

 

* * *

 

 

It was not the first wedding shower. Alyssa, who had never been involved in a wedding before, continued to be stunned at the sheer number of smaller events leading up to the big one. This was an ‘intimate’ shower: friends and family of the bride and groom only, instead of the friends and coworkers of their parents that their parents wanted to show them off to. 

It meant, unfortunately, that there were fewer people there, and they all knew her personally, which meant Alyssa’s whereabouts would be noted at all times.

It also meant her mother noticed that Alyssa wasn’t socializing as much as Irene Blythe felt was appropriate.

“All of these people are here to celebrate you, Alyssa,” Irene said, standing over Alyssa where she sat on a beribboned couch, trying to eat cake.

Mierin sat beside Alyssa, frowning. Arielle hovered behind Irene, looking particularly airheaded in pale blue robes covered in bows. Her hair was contained in the bows, too. Irene had murmured to Alyssa upon seeing her that sometimes good breeding didn’t always mean good taste, which had put Alyssa in the odd position of wanting to defend Arielle Douglas.

“I’m not stopping them,” Alyssa said finally.

Irene’s face did not change expression, but she managed to convey disappointment anyway. Alyssa once again bemoaned the fact that her mother had decided to pay attention  _ now. _

“Your father was looking for you,” Irene informed her.

Alyssa doubted it. Even had her father ever been inclined to look for her, she could see him clearly halfway across the room, chatting with his fellows from the ministry. Did her mother think she would fall for that?

Josh slipped around Irene and into the seat on the other side of Alyssa. He had a plate of cake too.

“Something the matter?” he asked, and took a bite of cake. Irene, Alyssa noticed, smiled immediately at her soon-to-be son-in-law, as if he would solve all of her problems.

Alyssa thought irritably that she would socialize if Josh asked her to. She was supposed to be madly in love with him. 

“Tell your fiancee that she should be mingling,” Irene said. “All of these guests are here for her.”

“I hope some of them are here for me,” Josh said, looking around as if he was unsure. Mulciber, who had appeared behind Arielle, snorted. Arielle jumped.

“Oh, Josh,” Irene said, laughing even as she turned the slightest bit to keep Mulciber in her peripheral vision. 

Arielle was not so subtle, but instead of fleeing as Alyssa half expected, she whacked Mulciber’s arm lightly, other hand over her heart, and exclaimed, “You scared me!”

Mulciber looked at her. She flushed and lowered her eyes, but Mulciber didn’t stop looking at her.

“Maybe I should go talk to more people,” Alyssa said hastily. “Arielle, you look like you could use some more punch. Come with me?”

She didn’t give Arielle time to reply. 

“Just don’t be alone with him,” Alyssa murmured as she led Arielle away. 

“Why not?” Arielle asked. Something in her voice made Alyssa look at her. When was the last time she had noticed Arielle Douglas, really? She was a little mouse who followed them all around, begging for cheese. The little mouse met Alyssa’s eyes head on and raised an eyebrow.

“Maybe Mulciber should try to get me alone,” Arielle said, voice even firmer than before. “Maybe he won’t like what happens.”

Alyssa considered Arielle for a moment. She had always been a mediocre student, so far as Alyssa knew. She hadn’t excelled at OWLs or NEWTS. She had, though, gotten exactly what she needed to continue in the subjects she was interested in. Everyone knew who she was, even if they didn’t think anything about her.

“Maybe,” Arielle said, “you should be very, very careful about getting me alone too, Alyssa.”

Arielle, Alyssa realized, was actually in an excellent position to profit no matter what happened anywhere at any time, simply because no one would ever consider her important enough to punish or indeed have thoughts of her own. Arielle, Alyssa considered, might know a great deal more about everything than she let on. 

Arielle, Alyssa decided, might be more of a threat to her continued existence than Mulciber.

 

* * *

 

 

Later, Alyssa pondered. Mulciber didn’t really suspect her of anything. He just wanted to get her in trouble with Josh, and so cast a wide net. Did Arielle?

Alyssa tried to remember if she hd ever acted differently or let anything slip while Arielle was around, but she couldn’t remember. She had fallen into the same trap as all the others.

But then, maybe Arielle didn’t actually know anything and was just fishing. If Alyssa didn’t want to take any chances, she could leave a quick word with Mierien or Mulciber or Josh that Arielle was acting oddly, or that she’d been creepy, or that Alyssa had noticed her going through some drawers and did honestly she could have just  _ asked  _ if she needed something.

It wouldn’t be hard to prove. Alyssa had snuck a few scrolls out of various desks already, and it would probably help if everyone thought it was someone specific rather than a rash of disappearing paper. It had only been after the first few times that she had considered just making copies and leaving the originals where they were, and by then it was too late for someone to have plausibly overlooked it.

A word to any of them and Arielle would disappear, Alyssa’s slowly blooming suspicions with them, and Alyssa’s hands would, in the most technical sense, be clean.

Of course, that assumed she could get over the nausea induced by the idea of cold-bloodedly plotting murder by proxy in order to actually do it.

She wasn’t even sure Arielle knew anything, or knew anything about her dabbling in spycraft. Maybe Arielle just thought she knew that Alyssa was using Josh for money or connections or to get her mother off her back or something. Alyssa needed to think it through before she did anything final.

First, then, she needed to get all of her information on Josh’s crowd’s plans to Jonathan or Razi, who would know who could use them best. Then she could see if Arielle knew anything too damning, and from there Alyssa would decide what to do with her.


	5. Chapter 5

Razi stood in front of a door. It was a plain wooden door with a simple round knob, brass possibly, and it was old. The blue light of the candles set around the circular antechamber played against the wood grain, illuminating patterns and lines that Razi followed with her eyes. Her thoughts intruded from time to time, but she was drawn back, constantly, to the door.

Had she put her mission cloak and hood away properly? Was that a scratch there? How many muggles had died, despite her night spent throwing hexes and sending death eaters chasing shadows? The healers at St Mungo’s were probably still patching up aurors and their new captives, or assessing for the imperius curse. There were fingerprints on the doorknob. Could she leave fingerprints on the doorknob? How would it feel?

It had been at least thirty-two hours since she’d last slept, and she’d arrived early to work, exchanging her grey order robes for ministry black and walking the few blocks over to the telephone booth. The death eaters had gotten closer to the ministry than they usually did. Tired but needing to earn her living, she’d made her way to this room, the antechamber of the Department of Mysteries. She’d moved to go to the mind chamber, where Batra had told her to meet, but then she’d heard the murmurs.

Beyond that door, the low voices of the dead gave muffled speeches. Just beyond wood and brass, beyond scratches and fingerprints, Razi could almost make out her mother’s voice in the din. She could almost hear Elaine again. She wanted to do more than scratch the door. She wanted to hear the impossible and all that stood between her and those voices, now gone from the air in every place except this one, was a door. There was just air between her and them. Air, wood, and brass, and maybe just a bit of tattered fabric, and all were easily –

“Take care, Levine,” Rookwood said, and Razi started at the sudden intrusion. She masked the movement by turning to look at him as he continued, “You wouldn’t be the first to fall to that particular temptation. It would be a shame.”

“It would. I will exercise more caution, Unspeakable Rookwood,” Razi said.

“See that you do,” Rookwood said. “By the way, only unspeakables and potential recruits are generally allowed into this chamber; particularly as the veil has ceased to be used for executions. Using the title in these rooms is redundant.”

Razi nodded and finally stepped away from the door to the death chamber. She was just steps away from the mind chamber when she heard the faint voices again and knew, without turning to look, that Rookwood had opened the door. Pressing forward, she darted into the open entrance to the chamber in front of her, even as the murmurs seemed to grow louder and closer at her back. She closed the mind door quickly, almost slamming it, and looked up to see Batra standing in front of her with a raised eyebrow.

The door had been open. Batra had heard her exchange with Rookwood, had maybe even seen her standing there.

“I’m sorry,” Razi found herself blurting. “I heard her. I don’t think I’d have gone in.”

“You will,” Batra argued. “How could you not? Not today though. For now, we begin with the mind.”

Batra stepped aside, allowing Razi to see the tank of brains floating at the center of the room, surrounded by desks.

“We are marked by our oath,” Batra began. “We promise to see and not say, and so we are allowed certain privileges. Today, I’ll show you one of them.”

Batra walked over to the tank, and plunged her hand into the strange viscous fluid within.  The brains in the tank floated to circle her hand, their strange tentacles, like lines of moving images drifted towards her but did not touch.

“Show me happiness,” she ordered and, as one, the tentacles wrapped around her wrist and glowed with a warm light. Batra’s eyes unfocused, and Razi watched with growing concern as she stared, unseeing at the wall on the other side of the tank.

“You’ll do nicely,” Batra murmured. Reassured by Batra’s voice, Razi watched as the older woman turned her wrist and spread her hand. The other tentacles released her, leaving one brain attached to her wrist. It pulled itself into her hand and Batra sat down at a nearby desk. A deep round basin filled with the same thick fluid as the tank appeared in front of her as she sat, and Batra placed the brain into it, submerging it completely.

“As you’ve read, these are the minds of Wizards from down through the centuries who chose to donate them at the hour of their deaths, that future generations might better understand what it means to live and to feel,” Batra said softly. “We have learned much from them. Come, Levine. Touch this moment here.”

More curious than tired, more enchanted than she’d have thought herself capable of being, Razi reached out but just as her fingers should have met cold, or humming warmth, or however the memory stream might have felt, Razi found herself somewhere else entirely.

The sunlight was blinding and sudden but Razi barely registered it as her whole experience was subsumed. She was, he was, used to it. _It was the brightest day of the summer, and he smiled at his wife on the blanket next to him, round with their second child as their first laughed underneath his tickling hand.  The years spread out in front of him and they seemed like the fruit of an orange, bright and sweet and covered but not unreachable. They had only to peel back the time and taste them, biting on seeds and laughing at the small reminders that life was only ever mostly a dream._

Razi wrenched herself back into the present and was almost at the door before Batra’s voice stopped her and she realized that she’d run.

“Razi,” Batra said, and Razi was dimly aware that this was a repetition, and that it wasn’t the first thing that Batra had tried. “Why are you running? it was lovely. I thought it a gift.”

 _It’s a lie_ , Razi thought first. That wasn’t it. Razi stood breathing heavily trying to think past the sudden weight of maybe thirty-three hours of being awake, alive, and at war.  

“It’s not mine,” Razi said, and the words felt right. “It’s not me. Is it yours to give me? Is any of it?”

“We are new to each other, Razi Levine, so forgive me if I’ve misunderstood you,” Batra said softly. “I thought you might like a happy break from yourself. I do, from time to time.”

Razi shook her head, clearing it and disagreeing in the same moment.

“She’s a part of me,” Razi said, and if she made sense only to herself, she couldn’t bring herself to mind. As she spoke Razi couldn’t decide which ‘she’ she’d meant. Razi tried not to mind that either. “He wiped us away and I was him instead.”

Reflecting on being the nameless stranger, Razi leaned against the door. She reached for the happiness and certainty but her mouth tasted like ash, and her heart felt empty.  “I can’t feel like that now. It’s not in me. I don’t want his happiness, Anandi Batra. Do I have to go there?”

“What can I show you instead?” Batra asked. “This is our only task. Name it, then watch again.”

Razi turned and stared at Batra and the tank for a long time. Finally, she answered.

“War, please,” Razi requested. “Show me another war. I want to understand”

“You won’t,” Batra replied, “How could you, in a day? But you are welcome to try.”  

Batra poured the basin and its brain back into the tank. The basin disappeared once it was empty, and Batra put her hand into the tank again.  

“Show me war,” she said.

Batra found one and set it down in the basin that materialized when Razi sat down at a desk. When  Razi reached out this time,  she settled into a memory of the war with Grindelwald. As the familiar, tired dread in the woman’s memory washed over  her, Razi settled into her perspective and let her body rest, as she experienced another life.

* * *

 

They’d taken her to Nurmengard. Anette’s eyes adjusted quickly to the dim light at the close of an already overcast day. She read the words carved into black stone over the door: For the Greater Good. There was no space left inside of her for fear or horror. She was angry, and it touched every part of her.

The small part that was Razi marveled at the heat of Anette’s fury, the blaze of it that should have blistered the skin of her captors and left black marks on the gravel as she was half marched and half dragged towards the great dark doors. The jostling woke pain in untended wounds, but Anette counted it all as fuel, and raged on.

Razi understood, Anette understood, how a thousand impersonal violations had drawn her to war and capture. Large, small, and utterly unforgivable, the wizarding world and Gellert Grindelwald had set them beside her door like the chopped logs on the porch of her grandfather’s cabin.  

Grindelwald thought to make slaves of muggles, of her family, of Janey and their friends and their shared world, and he would call it a restoration to natural order. Albus Dumbledore, the great rising star with his power and promise, had left his side so thoroughly that even those who’d seen them together, huddled in the corners of the three broomsticks or the leaky cauldron, now doubted that they’d been more than distant acquaintances.  He’d left Grindelwald, but only just that. If he fought his former friend now, Anette had not seen it. The Ministry couldn’t fight him either. It was all that they could do to keep the wizarding world hidden.  

They’d come to the stairs. Anette went limp, slowing them down as she made them drag her. Grindelwald insisted on the appearance of agency and complicity, when people entered his jail. They would not move her by magic while they were outside the walls.

Anette spared a thought for her lover; her perfect, magicless, entrancing Janey. They been hiding for years, but Anette had planned to tell her soon. She’d planned to give her Janey a world where they could hold hands when they went out; a place where they weren’t illegal even if a small few seemed to think that they should be.  She’d mapped and charted it all, unseen vistas where they’d never have to hide again. Anette had planned a lot of things.

She spat on the threshold as she was marched inside.

A hand pulled her back into the present.

It took a moment to separate herself from Anette, but fully herself Razi turned to look at Batra. The older woman’s face was inscrutable.

“Did Anette get home to Janey?” Razi asked.

“She did, but if you cannot bear her happiness, you’ll never see it for yourself. You asked for war, not love,” Batra replied. “The aurors have asked to borrow you for the remainder of today and all of tomorrow.  You may go, but report on what you experienced today. I want it delivered on your return.”

Razi nodded, standing slowly, less steady than she’d have liked.

“Remember your oaths, Unspeakable,” Batra said softly, “and rest before you return.”

“I will,” Razi vowed.      

* * *

 

Alice Longbottom stood at the end of the black stone corridor. She wore muggle clothing and stood beside a cloaked and hooded figure in front of the elevator as Razi came out of the antechamber.

“You requested me?” Razi asked, stopping a few steps away.

Alice nodded and entered the elevator with the hooded figure, but Razi did not follow immediately. The cloaked figure pulled her hood back briefly, flashing red hair and green eyes. Only one person had those eyes. Razi joined them in the elevator, and Alice stopped it between floors.

“They’ve been spotted in Knightsbridge, we need you to follow and divert them. Stop them from making a spectacle,” Alice directed. “Have you got your hood?”

“In that neighborhood it’d draw more eyes than it deflected,” Lily said. “I’ve got sunglasses I can enchant for you, Alice. Razi and I will just try and stay out of sight.”

Lily reached into a pocket and un-did the shrinking charm on a pair of sunglasses with wide black lenses. They suited Alice well, and Lily smiled a little as she enchanted them. As she moved her wand over the glasses, Razi noticed the ring on her hand. It was gold, stoneless, a band with filigree detail, and Lily hadn’t been wearing it the last time Razi had seen her.

“You and James?” Razi asked. It had been just weeks, barely month if that, since Lily had said that she’d wanted to wait a while before getting engaged and married. “Now?”

Lily’s mouth curved in a move that might have been mistaken for a smile if her eyes had had any power to lie.

“There’s no time,” Lily said. Her tone made Razi want to gather up her remaining days and set them like a gift in front of her friend, but even those days were empty promises. She thought of the nameless stranger’s happiness, and wished oranges for Lily Evans. She thought of Alyssa, of Elaine, of Matt, and Vanessa, and still of Lily who should have been able to smile at her own engagement. She wished them safe, lovely worlds without hiding, and she couldn’t feel anything. It wasn’t a lie. That hope wasn’t her. Razi hadn’t slept in so long.

Alice pressed a potions vial into Razi’s hand, bringing her back to the moment. “She’s right. Levine, take this. It’ll keep you sharp.”

Razi downed the potion, and soon after they took a portkey to Knightsbridge. When they landed and steadied themselves, Razi caught sight of a black robed figure slipping into a nearby alley. She apparated across the busy street and followed, planning illusions as she went.  


	6. Chapter 6

It took two tears and five words to Mierin (“I want to be alone”) for Mierin and Jonathan to play bodyguard at the door of the room appropriated as the bridal suite. It took seven minutes and thirty-nine seconds for Alyssa to cast a disillusionment charm over herself and navigate the two-story drop into the rose bushes outside the window, barely managing not to land face-first in one of them. She hadn’t realized climbing would be such an essential skill for sneaking, though it was obvious in hindsight. She should practice more.

The flat-out run to the end of the Avery property and the anti-apparition wards left her out of breath and deciding to practice running while she was at it. Apparating did not help her catch her breath, so when Razi opened her door, one hand in a large satchel slung over her shoulder, Alyssa had a hand on the doorframe just below the mezuzah to keep herself mostly upright.

“I’m getting married,” Alyssa said, panting.

“Kind of figured that one out,” Razi replied, letting go of something in the bag and crossing her arms. She looked like her mother when Shara had pretended to be exasperated with them. “It’s in the papers and everything.”

“You’d be there if it was for real,” Alyssa said. It was important that Razi knew that. “I mean, I’d have invited you, if it was real. I don’t actually know that you’d have been there-”

“I’d have been there,” Razi said. “If you’d invited me.”

_ This time too _ , Alyssa knew Razi almost added.

“Okay,” Alyssa said, and held out the packet of papers she’d collected from the Avery and Dolohov and Mulciber households.

Razi waited, watching her.

“This is me,” Alyssa said in a rush. “I want - I’m going to say things and do things and it’s going to look bad, Razi, it’s going to look really bad, but this is me right now, okay?”

This time Alyssa waited. Razi’s arms remained crossed and she looked like she was thinking. Alyssa couldn’t help but note the fizzing sense of a ward above her hand, worked into the mezuzah with such precision that she doubted someone unfamiliar with Razi could tell, and the fact that when Razi had removed her hand from her bag she had probably let go of her wand. Alyssa herself was keeping her hands away from her wand with effort: the disillusionment charm had faded on contact with the doorstep and she felt terribly exposed.

“Okay,” Razi said at last, and took the papers.

Alyssa sagged with relief. Razi believed her, the information would get where it would do the most good, and no one could find those particular papers on Alyssa.

“I have to go get married now,” she said. “And talk to people. And stuff.”

Razi looked all of a sudden as if she wanted to laugh. “Good luck with that.”

“I’ll need it,” Alyssa said without thinking, and winced.

Razi nodded and twisted her wrist. The papers disappeared. Alyssa straightened, and Razi wrapped her arms around her. The embrace was tighter than Razi probably meant for it to be, but Alyssa returned it just as hard, clutching at her friend.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, not entirely sure what she was apologizing for. There were a lot of things. The hug tightened again, one brief, too-hard squeeze.

“Don’t die,” Razi said, and let go.

* * *

 

Alyssa managed to climb back into the window, but not as gracefully as she’d gotten down: she tumbled head over heels and only had time to refresh two cosmetic spells before her mother swanned into the room, Mrs. Avery-call-me-mum and Arielle Douglas in her wake. Mierin and Jonathan hovered by the door, Mierin keeping an eye on the hallway and the room. There was no chance of sneaking the last two incriminating papers into Douglas’ things now.

“No more alone time,” Irene said. “It won’t do you any good, and we’re already behind schedule.”

Irene took over, and Alyssa let her, right down to the hairstyle.

Mrs. Avery- Mum - took her aside a moment once to ask quietly if maybe Alyssa wanted something to go differently, or if she really did like the alteration Irene had made to the gown. Alyssa said, “I just want to get married.”

Mum beamed at her. Alyssa smiled back, making sure she showed the correct number of teeth.

* * *

 

Alyssa remembered very little of the wedding, but that was fine. There were enough pictures to fill six and a half tastefully decorated scrapbooks. She didn’t, strictly speaking, have any moral objection to scrapbooks. It just seemed excessive to have more than five dedicated to the same event, especially when she wore the same expression in all but one of them. She wondered if anyone had noticed the small smile showed exactly the same number of teeth in every picture. She should work on that.

The exception was a picture of Alyssa and Mierin: they were spinning each other around, hands clasped, arms stretched as far as they could go and hair continuously flying free of pins and setting spells. Both of them were laughing: Mierin had been tipsy on champagne and cake and Alyssa hadn’t been able to help herself. Mierin’s hands had been warm.

Three days later, Avery woke her in the middle of the night.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, letting herself sound groggier than she felt.

“There’s a ceremony,” Avery said. He was standing by the bed, fully clothed: Alyssa wondered uncharitably if he did it to make her feel off balance. “You don’t have to do it, but it could help. Nobody would doubt you belong here.”

Who doubts me now? she wanted to ask, but she knew at least one: Mulciber. Possibly Douglas.

“Did you have to wake me up?” she asked, and when he took a long moment to answer she rolled away from him, burying her face in the pillows. “We can talk about it in the morning.”

“No, Alyssa, come on,” he insisted, tugging the blanket away. “This is important.”

“So is sleeping,” she muttered, but she hauled herself up to sit against the headboard.

Avery paused again. She tried to look like she was trying to be patient.

“We’re getting our dark marks tonight,” he said.

Alyssa was no longer even slightly groggy, and she didn’t bother pretending to be. “You want  _ me  _ to get a dark mark?”

“Nobody’s going to make you do anything,” Avery said, holding his hands up as if to show that he was unarmed. Alyssa wasn’t fooled: she’d seen him do wandless magic. “With or without the mark. It’s just a symbol, Alyssa.”

Of course Avery would think it was just a symbol, Alyssa thought blankly. To him it was: he was already what the symbol symbolized. 

“It doesn’t hurt much,” he rushed to assure her when she didn’t answer. “Dad says it just stings a little.”

Alyssa thought of Razi’s warded mezuzah and how it had fizzed being near her hand, and wondered if she would even be able to enter Razi’s house with a dark mark on her arm. Would she even want Alyssa to enter her house? 

“Alyssa,” Avery said. “Please. For me.”

When she still didn’t respond he started backing away, face closing off.

Razi had said she’d know Alyssa was still Alyssa no matter what. She’d told Alyssa to stay alive. More than that, if Avery stopped trusting Alyssa now, she might never get another chance. She wouldn’t be able to help Razi at all after that.

“Let me get dressed,” Alyssa said.

When she had done so, she caught Avery’s hand. “For you,” she said. He smiled.

* * *

 

The meeting was in a clearing  in a forest. Alyssa wasn’t sure which forest: Josh had taken her side-along, and still had an arm wrapped possessively around her shoulders. Mierin had drifted over when they arrived, leaving behind an older woman with Mierin’s dark hair and a pale blond man who sneered at everyone. Alyssa recognized Mierin’s parents, but only barely. The Smythes hadn’t stayed long at the wedding.

“You don’t have to do this,” Mierin murmured into Alyssa’s ear now.

Josh’s arm tightened and he glared. “She said she would. Back off, Smythe.”

“Go home and sleep, Alyssa,” Mierin said, pointedly looking only at Alyssa’s face. “If anybody said they’d make you come here, I’ll take care of it.”

“Nobody’s making her,” Josh snapped.

“Nobody makes me do anything, Mierin,” Alyssa said. “I thought you knew that.”

Mierin subsided, but she kept eyeing Alyssa worriedly.

“I don’t see him,” Mulciber said, appearing on Josh’s other side. “Your dad says he has more pressing matters.”

Mierin snorted. Josh frowned. It took Alyssa a moment too long to realize he was upset that Voldemort wasn’t here, and realized too that she had been  _ absolutely insane  _ for agreeing to attend without establishing that an evil and accomplished legilimens wasn’t going to be there.

She needed to sit down, so she did, right there on the ground. Okay, she thought as Josh and Mierin began fussing and someone on the other side of the clearing began droning about sacred pureblood duty. Okay, so I need to be more careful. I have those papers on me right now, even, what was I thinking, I’d have  _ died.  _ Avery wouldn’t be enough to save me then even if he wanted to. Stop being careless, Alyssa. Start being smart. Stay alive. Razi wants you to.

Occlumency first, she decided. No, first get rid of the papers. You don’t  _ need  _ to put them on Douglas. What are the odds someone would even find them? Just burn them somewhere.  _ Then  _ Occlumency. Maybe Razi knows someone.

_ “Alyssa,”  _ Mierin snapped right in her ear, and Alyssa jolted.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“Go home,” Mierin said, but Josh pushed her aside and took Alyssa’s hands.

“Everything is going to be fine,” he assured her, leaning in to kiss her forehead.

“Of course it will,” Alyssa said, letting him pull her to her feet, and said again, “I’m fine.”

“You’ve gone green,” Mierin protested, but the speech at the front had ended and the older people were turning to each other, wands extended, and putting the tips to the young adults’ forearms. Alyssa watched Mierin’s mother draw the dark mark on Douglas as Mr. Smythe took Mierin’s arm.

Josh kept hold of Alyssa’s hand when he turned to accept the mark from his father. Alyssa watched him instead of Mierin.

It was Mierin who took Alyssa’s arm, though, and had almost gotten her wand to skin when Alyssa yanked away.

“I want Josh to do it,” Alyssa said. She didn’t want Mierin to do something she didn’t want to do, and still less did Alyssa want Mierin to do this thing, specifically. She didn’t want to look at the mark on Mierin’s arm at all. It was easier to see the one on Josh, who she had always known would get one. On Mierin the mark looked doubly heinous, and around it her skin had mottled blue and purple.

When Alyssa looked up Douglas watched her steadily, mark solid and dark, arm bruised not at all. Alyssa looked at Avery.

He put his wand to her arm and began tracing. At first it felt like the sting of static electricity, but it got steadily worse. By the end Alyssa had to bite her tongue to keep from making noise, and she could feel tears in her eyes. By the end, it felt like the time she had accidentally spilled some pepper-up potion into a blood replenisher in her fourth year and then splashed it on herself. She hadn’t lost the arm thanks to the expertise of Madame Pomfrey, but she had been told in great detail why it was so painful - namely, that her blood had begun to boil from her wrist up.

“You said it would only sting a little,” she managed when it was done. She tasted blood - she’d bitten too hard on her tongue. Her arm had a skull and snake. It was black. She looked at Josh’s to see if it was exactly the same as his, and it was.

“I forgot you weren’t used to pain,” he said apologetically, leaning over to kiss over the mark like it was beautiful. She didn’t correct him on either point.

Later, when everyone was drinking and laughing and she managed to slip away to the pile of cloaks everyone had tossed aside in the heat, she found the one Douglas had been wearing. Two quick spells had the lining open, the papers shoved in, and the lining sewn back up before anyone saw her.

She leaned back against a tree - oak - and sank to the ground again, examining her arm.

“You should have hurt more,” she told it, and pulled her sleeve down.


	7. Chapter 7

Razi stood in the doorway after Alyssa left, her gardening bag a grounding weight on her shoulder. She'd taken they day off from work.  She'd told herself that she was trying to avoid another near disaster with death's door. She needed to rest periodically or she'd be useless, to Ministry and the Order. It was true, but, having seen Alyssa, there was no denying that part of her had hoped that her friend would come.   

Admittedly, she'd hoped that Alyssa would stay. Razi had hoped have her safe, free, and close by.  What she'd gotten instead was nearly the opposite, but at least Razi had seen her. At least, she had more proof of Alyssa's continued loyalty before things started to look 'really bad'.  

Razi thought back to Hogwarts, those last years of watching her friend get close to a bigot to keep Razi safe and to protect Elaine. Things had looked bad then. Alyssa had been shunned by nearly every decent person outside of Slytherin because of how it'd looked.  How much worse would it be now, with higher stakes and no end in sight? There was no point in speculating. Razi needed to deal with the papers Alyssa had given her, and everything that they represented. Alyssa had clearly chosen her path, so Razi would have to help her however she could. 

Razi had had weeks to think about what she might do when this moment came. Alyssa had sent her the unsigned note, like a bizarre save-the-date, when she'd 'reconciled' with Avery. Now that the day had arrived, and with the bride stepping into place, there was nothing left to do but act. 

Putting aside her gardening things, Razi took her wand from the bag, and the papers from the drawer in her bedroom where she'd sent them. There was meeting planned for that night, but Razi needed privacy. She pulled on her grey cloak and the hood enchanted to hide her face. Apparating from her bedroom to the foyer at headquarters, she exhaled a breath that had been taken in miles away. Magic, she reminded herself, made the inconceivable routine. 

A sudden sound upstairs followed by footsteps brought Albus Dumbledore into view. He didn't waste time.

"Ms. Levine?" He asked.  

“I have sensitive information," Razi stated. 

"Then we'll discuss it in my office,” Dumbledore replied, turning and leading the way. 

Located in one of the upstairs bedrooms that had been warded and converted, his office was essentially a small study with framed maps along the walls.  Razi didn't doubt that the room had its secrets, Merlin knew that Dumbledore himself did, but it kept them well and Razi was disinclined to attempt to seek them. 

Dumbledore sat down behind his desk and looked up at her waving to a seat on the other side. The door closed behind her, and Razi could almost feel the silencing wards as they settled. 

Razi took a seat and pulled the hood back from her face. Noting the weight of it, like a gentle hand pressed to her back, she a took brief, steadying breath. 

"You may proceed, Ms. Levine," Dumbledore said. 

Razi put the papers on the desk and thought quickly of the few times when she'd asked Elaine to trust her about Alyssa, or put off others in her group with a look. Those times were gone. Dumbledore would take nothing less than the truth. 

"Alyssa Blythe," Razi began, "Alyssa Avery by day's end, came home today. She meant to show me who she is. I intend to pass along her message. As you've said before, we've been set on a certain course for some time now. We all do what we must. If Alyssa's course is not to end in waste and ruin, I must ask you to examine her actions thus far with the understanding that she protects her own with all the tools that she has available. In our fifth year she saw a threat and did what she could to protect me. Now,  with Elaine and my mother, with her brother playing his role... This is the road that she's chosen."

Dumbledore picked up the papers and read through them in silence. Setting them aside, he looked back up at Razi. 

"You are of the belief that Alyssa Avery intends to use her position and connections to act as a spy," Dumbledore said, his tone so neutral that Razi could only nod and wait. 

"It seems we are doomed to repeat much of that conversation," Dumbledore said. "Because I would remind you were asked to be discrete concerning your invitation to this group. I take it that she knows of your involvement." 

Razi didn't move. She waited as he continued. 

"She knows of your involvement. Your home was attacked, not killing you, but striking to wound in such a way as could conceivably have deterred you from taking part in current events," Dumbledore said, and raised a hand when Razi moved to protest. "You persisted, quite admirably I should say, and now she arrives with information.  You've established her willingness to deceive to protect her own. I do not question your loyalty, Ms. Levine, but it would be foolish to continue without confirming hers.  If she is who you believe her to be, we will proceed from there." 

"She'd never have hurt my mother," Razi told him, and she tried very hard to keep the emotion from her voice. "Even if she'd been toying with me, she'd never have hurt her." 

"I've received your report," Dumbledore said. "If you've nothing to add, I will see you at tonight's meeting. You are to have no further contact with the new Mrs. Avery until I give you further instruction." 

Razi stood and left the room, sickened by what he'd implied and with the growing fear that she'd just put a target on Alyssa's head. She apparated out from foyer and fell to her knees in the garden shed. Razi knew the truth, knew that she hadn't been responsible for betraying the order in its infancy and killing her mother but even the idea was more than she could bear. 

She stayed in the shed for a long time, not leaving it until she could stand and breath properly. Dumbledore hadn't said no, he'd only advised caution. That he'd advised it in the harshest possible terms had been in deference to the gravity of the situation. 

She left the shed, changed and tended to her garden. All that she could do now, was wait. 

* * *

 

The meeting that night  went well enough. Jonathan looked tired, but he was far from the only one, and Gideon was particularly attentive with him. Razi had locked eyes with Jonathan briefly when he arrived and he'd made a point of passing her hot cups of strong, sweet tea whenever he could do so unobtrusively. Razi made a mental note to invite him to dinner again soon, as Dumbledore gave a brief gloss of recent events. 

The negative events were predictable, if worrying. The aurors were still exhausting themselves as Voldemort grew bolder, his forces  increasing.  People were staying close enough to home that still more shops had closed their doors. There'd been more deaths; some bodies now showing signs of having been attacked by vampires. 

The positive events were few. Lily and James’s engagement was announced officially and was met with cheers, and the occasion person glancing at Remus and Sirius as though expecting a complimentary announcement. Remus didn't seem to notice, preoccupied with comforting Pettigrew, who was still shaken after the mention of vampires. He and Remus had followed one, tracking him through his train journey and beyond. Razi hadn't been present to hear their report, but Lily had told her something of what Pettigrew had described. His distress made sense. 

"Now, on to other concerns," Dumbledore said, and the room went quiet. "With his forces increased, it seems likely that Voldemort will make a concentrated strike within the coming weeks. Ms. Levine, Ms. Evans,  I would like you to use your connections and research to work with Alastor on fortifying potential targets. Messrs. Potter, Dearborn and Black, Mses. Meadows, McKinnon and Vance, I have several reconnaissance tasks for you. I would like to speak with each of you following the meeting for more specific instructions.  All of you must remain vigilant. The strike could come at any moment. While I hope that we have time to prepare further, you have all been trained to do what you must when the need arises."

Dumbledore ended the meeting soon after, lining up those with special assignments outside of his office so that he could see them individually. 

Razi and Lily took the opportunity to meet with Alastor Moody. 

"Alright," he said, tersely leading them over to a less crowded part of the room, "Albus tells me you two will need the least handholding to get a sense of the wards around the Ministry, Downing street, and other locations. If he's wrong, I'll find out who is, right off, and it'll be them on this instead, with you two off doing something useful. We clear?" 

The two women nodded. 

"Levine, you should know that the maintenance of these wards is Unspeakable work, in part, and if any of this gets out, me and them'll all be coming for you, and we'll have a nice big jurisdiction fight over your ashes. Anyone who shares information on these wards will be named an enemy of the international confederation, and no place on earth will hide her traitorous arse. Still clear?" 

They nodded again. 

"Then let's get to it," Moody said. He led them to a spare room, and lessons on the existing Wards began in earnest. 

After a couple of hours, Razi and Lily rejoined the others for a late meal.  

Razi watched Lily and James as they reunited in the dining room, trying to see from their expressions if the reconnaissance missions were going to be particularly dangerous or frightening. If they were, James seemed untroubled. Jonathan walked by, dropping off another cup of tea, not pausing to be thanked. Razi sipped it, turning to talk with Remus, who'd sat beside her. He'd brought her a plate.

Razi got her wand out, conjured an extra plate and gave Remus half of the rice and vegetables that he'd brought her. 

"Brilliant of you to make sure there was enough for both of us," Razi said. "How are you?" 

"Fine. Bored even," Remus said. "I've my own tasks, but it's slow work. Reconnaissance would have been a nice change of pace." 

Razi ate and considered that. As she finished her food she looked up at him. 

"How were your herbology scores?" she asked. 

"Fairly good, though it wasn't my best subject. Why?" 

Remus was confused, and Razi found that it wasn't a bad look for him. 

"You can come help in my gardens, if you like," Razi offered. "I'll even throw hexes at you if you pick things before their time." 

Remus laughed softly, an even better look for him, but was still pale. Razi tried to think when the last full moon had been.

"A generous offer," Remus said. "I may take you up on that soon." 

They ate companionably. Remus was an easy person to share silence with. The low voices of the other members were comforting. 

Sirius drew Remus back to the stove for seconds, giving Razi a brief smile in thanks for getting him to accept a first helping. 

Nodding in response, Razi thought suddenly of Matt. He’d have smiled too, to see her looking after a peer. Hufflepuff to the core, feeding a friend was exactly the sort of thing he’d approve of. It’d been a long summer and a busy one, but it felt odd to have gone so long without talking to him. 

Glancing at a clock, Razi saw that it was getting late, but not unforgivably so. 

She stood, nodding to her friends and acquaintances before going to foyer and  apparating home. 

It'd been over half a year since Razi had used a phone, but it wasn't a skill she was likely to forget.  Her friends' numbers had been copied carefully into the notebook that the phone rested on. Razi found Matt’s with little trouble, pausing only to linger over the entries that her mother had written. 

Matt's little sister answered the phone, and Razi talked to her briefly while they waited for Matt to respond to her summons. Even before he spoke Razi felt warmer, soothed by the sound of the phone passing hands.   

"Razi, is everything ok?" Matt asked in greeting, and Razi paused, remembering suddenly the world and the war. Of course he'd think that she was calling with news. 

"Things are as well as the can be, I suppose," Razi said. "I tricked a friend into taking care of himself and thought of you." 

"I'm honored," Matt replied. "I heard about... well Pepper keeps me informed, and I get the Prophet. I'm sorry." 

"Don't, you didn't do anything," Razi said. 

"Neither did you," Matt said, "and all of this still happened. Someone should be sorry; might as well be me." 

"Matt," Razi began, but decided to let it go. "Have you finished 'The Last Unicorn'?" 

"I did, ages ago," Matt said. "Not sure how I felt about the end, but it it's far from the worst thing I've read."

"I like that the journey changed her. It mattered in the end, and her friends came out alright," Razi said. 

"But she's still singular," Matt said. "She's still the only one of her kind, even among other unicorns. She knows love and regret, but does that matter if she'll never act on them again? If she'll never have another friend who feels them back?"

The two talked for a while, but eventually Razi sighed, and said, "I don't know if I should write to you, during the year. Not often anyway. I worry that I'll make you a target. You know what they've done." 

"I'll still be working with Pepper, and Elaine's group," Matt pointed out. "It could go the other way ‘round." 

"It could," Razi said, and for a moment she couldn’t breathe. She hadn't planned this; wouldn’t have planned this parting on this day, but she couldn’t deny that it needed to happen. Her path was increasingly unsafe, and Matt was still a Hogwarts student. For now, he still needed to be protected, and she wouldn't take that from him for the world. "Call me when you're home. I'm keeping the phone service here. Write if you need me."

"And when I miss you?" Matt asked. 

Razi closed her eyes, knowing that he couldn't see her.

"I’ll miss you too," Razi said. "We'll walk together in a better world one day, I hope. We'll check out those used bookstores I promised. Keep them safe. Be careful." 

"You do the same," Matt said. "In a better world or a worse one, I'll catch up to you one of these days." 

He sounded so noble that Razi wondered how Hufflepuff house had ever been maligned as somehow less worthy than the others. She wondered if his nobility would survive if the war stretched on long enough for him to join her in a worse world. 

"Till then," Razi said, and hung up the phone. 

Taking up her gardening things, she went outside and worked  until she found peace enough to sleep. 


End file.
